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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250929T103326Z
DTSTART:20251208T150000Z
DTEND:20251208T170000Z
SUMMARY:Charis Boutieri (King's College London). Speaking Freedom: The Tu
 nisian public sphere between revolution and democracy
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 y-bbplji
DESCRIPTION:This talk will present my forthcoming book\, which interrogat
 es the historical formations and contemporary reconfigurations of the Tu
 nisian public sphere. While profoundly delimited under the French Protec
 torate (1861–1956)\, the nationalist single-party regime of Habib Bourgu
 iba (1956–1987)\, and the authoritarian police state of Zine El Abidine 
 Ben Ali (1987–2011)\, the public sphere nonetheless underwent a striking
  resurgence during the 2011 revolution and the institutional transformat
 ions that followed. It became both an object of reflection and a vehicle
  for systematic intervention by Tunisians across social\, political\, an
 d generational divides. Through the analytic lens of ethnography\, the b
 ook examines how deliberative practices among diverse constituencies gen
 erated shifting imaginaries of collective life and popular sovereignty. 
 In doing so\, it complicates the normative parameters of the Habermasian
  model of dispassionate rational exchange among formally equal citizens.
  Rather than replicating liberal-democratic ideals\, Tunisian practices 
 of deliberation reveal a democratic project marked by instability\, cont
 estation\, and the continual renegotiation of its terms and registers. T
 he book advances the argument that instability is not merely symptomatic
  of democratic fragility but constitutive of democracy itself. It posits
  that revolution and democracy are experientially\, discursively\, and c
 onceptually entwined\, providing overlapping frameworks within which Tun
 isians articulate peoplehood\, negotiate freedoms\, and redefine the sco
 pe of political belonging\n\nCharis Boutieri is Associate Professor of S
 ocial Anthropology at King’s College London. She is author of Learning i
 n Morocco (IUP 2016) and co-editor of special issues on contemporary Nor
 th Africa (JNAS 2018) and Public Reason (JRAI 2025). A former Leverhulme
  Trust and British Academy fellow\, she researches public life and polit
 ics. \n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:Boardroom (2.016-17)\, Arthur Lewis Building\, Manchester
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